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Durand grain won't offer commodity credit
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Friday, July 18, 2008 11:48 PM EDT
DURAND - The Durand Feed & Grain Company Warehouse has been removed from the Uniform Grain and Rice Storage Agreement.
According to Jayne A. Van Ness, county executive director of the Shiawassee County Farm Service Agency office, the request was made about three months ago and is effective as of Thursday.
By requesting this termination, Shiawassee County and surrounding farm producers will not be allowed to request a Commodity Credit Corporation loan. CCC enters into grain and rice storage agreements with private individuals and companies to allow warehouse operators to store commodities owned by CCC or pledged as security to CCC for marketing assistance loans.
“They are taking in grain and their elevator is not closing,” Jayne A. Van Ness, county executive director of the Shiawassee County Farm Service Agency Office, said. “They will not store government grain or they will not allow a producer to store his grain under a negotiable warehouse receipt and put it under loan with the (Shiawassee County Farm Service Agency).”
Van Ness said the Durand Feed & Grain Company was the only warehouse in Shiawassee County that was UGRSA approved.
She said the only farmers this would affect would be the producers who would want to put their grain under loan, but don't have any on-farm storage.
“Nothing is going to change. Farmers will still go in there and sell their grain through Durand Feed & Grain,” Van Ness said. “They will still store grain for the producers, but they cannot put it under loan with the government.”
Owner Jeff Bancroft was not available for comment.
Art Thiel, the grain manager at the Frutchey Bean Co. in Oakley, said he believes very few farmers use the CCC loan through public warehouse anymore.
“If the grain prices were low, (producers) would take a loan out on their grain and these elevators would store it for them. However, then the CCC would hold the title to the grain until the farmer repaid the loan,” Thiel said. “But nowadays that doesn't happen too much. A lot more farmers have their own storage at home now and they can take the government loan on their crops through that way.”
Van Ness agreed with Thiel's sentiments.
“Neither Shiawassee or Genesee County have dispersed any warehouse loans in the last couple of years,” she said.